Windows Phone to rival BlackBerry by 2016

Microsoft’s mobile OS, Windows Phone, will continue to gain traction in the Asia Pacific business smartphone market over the next five years, ultimately rivalling the market penetration of RIM’s BlackBerry in 2016.

That’s according to analyst firm Ovum’s new forecast, ‘Enterprise Smartphone Forecast: 2011-2016’, which predicts that Windows Phone and BlackBerry will each achieve 25% market penetration in 2016.

This will see both devices each reaching about 1.1 million units by the end of 2016.

Ovum attaches a 37% CAGR to the 236,000 Windows Phone devices that are expected to enter the market by the end of 2011. Meanwhile, BlackBerry devices are expected to grow from 638.000, at a CAGR of 12%.

Until then, BlackBerry “will remain the dominant player”, Ovum said.

Pauline Trotter, Principal Analyst at Ovum, said: “BlackBerry will remain the overall leader for the forecast period as its strong device management and security capabilities make it a favourite with IT departments.

“However, reflecting trends in the consumer smartphone market, Windows Phone and other OS devices will make significant gains. Ongoing improvements in manageability of these device platforms, and support for more business applications, will begin to make these devices much more appealing to enterprise buyers,” she said.

The report also predicts that the uptake of the iPhone by business users will increase.

“Shipments will reach 455,000 in 2016, a CAGR of 19% from the 189,000 it will reach at the end of this year,” Ovum said.

Google’s Android OS, meanwhile, is predicted to grow at a CAGR of 28.29%.